film scans

8mm . super 8 . 16mm . super 16 . 35mm

Created by Cinematographer Justin Lovell

At first our scanner was built just for me and a small collective of cinematographers who love film. Eventually people saw my films and asked where I got it transferred. I had no intention of starting a transfer studio. It’s only because of the requests from people like you that Frame Discreet was created. So thank you.

After building 3 different filmscanners including the first 2K raw data film scanner in Canada, we invested in the groundbreaking Lasergraphics 5k HDR Scanstation. Supporting 8mm, 16mm and 35mm. I love the way it captures the subtle details and impressive dynamic range in film. It’s been a journey to get where I am today and the friends I’ve made along the way makes it all worthwhile.

Why use Frame Discreet?

Frame Discreet’s Lasergraphics 5k Scanstation has a specifically enlarged gate. By overscanning the frame, our system effectively shrinks the film grain giving you a sharper, crisper image.

We Multi-flash each frame of film twice – once for the highlights and once for the shadows to preserve more detail from each frame

We scan directly off the film.

We have separate optical and mag sound heads for perfect sync and incredibly accurate sound quality

Sprocketless transport means no claws touch your film. Got torn sprockets, warped film, shrunken film? No Problem. Film is optically stabilized using algorithms that no other scanner has. The BEST in the business.

16, 18, 24 fps or any other speed… your footage is timed to play back at the exact frame rate it was intended. No ‘charlie chaplin’ scenes here (unless that’s what you want!).

We provide scene by scene colour correction through DaVinci Resolve. This ensures that your film has accurate colour balance. Faded and color shifted film can be restored back to its original look.

WeJUST SCAN FILM. THIS IS OUR SPECIALITY – THATS WHY WE DO IT SO WELL.

Transfer Comparisons

Below are some frame grabs comparing a typical ‘5 bladed shutter’ realtime transfer to our ‘frame by frame’ transfer. These images have not been modified from the original scans.

Another filmmaker brought us this footage to re-transfer after she was thoroughly unimpressed by the original transfer done somewhere else. This was shot on COLOUR NEGATIVE 500T (7218) Super 8mm. The original transfer was washed out, missing all colour information and had no sharpness. (Check out the hands on the watch). Appears more like low grade VHS rather than super 8 beauty!

In this image you can notice notice how much sharper our image is. Particularly look at the how the grain shows up much sharper in the sky. Also look at the “50” road sign and metal guard rail. The detail and sharpness is completely lost in the typical transfer method (thank you to Nicolas Renaud for k40 images).

The above image shows how much more contrast can be gained from frame by frame scanning. We are particularly pleased with these results. Many clients have come to us because the typical telecine method leaves their footage looking too ‘flat’ and ‘washed out’. Also take note of how sharp the image is around the henchman poking in the fire.

This is the motion blur that comes with a typical transfer. As the video camera records the projected image, sometimes it catches information from 2 of your frames of film at once, giving you a blurred softer image. This can seemingly give you a smoother looking transfer but in turn sacrifices image sharpness, detail and contrast. If you are shooting Pro footage and understand your camera’s shutter angles, then a typical transfer method is unacceptable and will ruin any type of sharp shutter effects you are trying to create.

Frame Discreet’s Lasergraphics 5k Scanstation system resolves these issues replicating what is exactly on the film for the most true digital copy of your film.

This service is only available as a flat scan to give you the most economical way to see what’s on your film.

Typically for maximum results, archiving, feature film, TV productions, museum gallery / installation. The extremely high resolution is future friendly as technology evolves. We scan at 5K and can downscale to any resolution (5K/4K/UHD 3.8K/1080p). Why this option? When the 5K image gets scaled down to fit a reduced resolution, details become sharper. 5K FLAT SCAN is also an economical choice for the highest quality image capture aimed for colour correction. Also, if you want to make a high quality photo print of a certain frame, get a 5K scan.

The scanner optics are setup for 2K. We can downscale to 1080p HD from our 2K scan. This provides an even sharper image than compared to a 1080p scan. For most 1080p output is sufficient. However, we offer the 2K output at the same price. For best results, get the TIMED SCAN.

What’s all this about HDR?

HDR (High Dynamic Range) scanning is our new Standard. It allows us to give you the best in image quality. Films that may have dark or bright scenes will benefit immensely. Normally exposed images come out smoother and cleaner.

Because it has impressed us that much, HDR Scanning has become our new Standard Scanning Method. No one else in town has the specific bleeding edge technology we are using.

Why are we doing this?

Frame Discreet is quietly recognized as the only place to go if you want the best quality film scan. Image quality and truly reproducing what’s on the film is our number one goal.

Justin started this back in 2004 when he couldn’t find a place that could do a good enough scan to meet his standards as a Cinematographer. Since then we’ve grown dramatically and upgraded from Standard Definition to High Definition to 2k Flat Data scans to 5k scans… hand after hand pushing the envelope in Motion Picture Film Scanning.

Our newest upgrade – which has never before been offered for small format – HDR (High Dynamic Range) Scanning is notably one of our most exciting upgrades.

This improvement is significant enough to make it our new Standard.

Why is this important to me?

No one is perfect – and we see underexposed and overexposed film everyday. Our standard (NON-HDR) scanning techniques do an excellent job holding that detail.. but quite often images could benefit from a HDR Scan that can effectively dig and find buried information in the shadows and highlights.

How does it work?

High Dynamic range scanning is achieved by scanning each frame of film twice. Pass 1 exposes for the shadows, Pass 2 exposes for the highlights. The two images are combined giving an amazing dynamic range of detail.

This takes us twice as long – but the improvements are impressive enough that we just can’t help wanting to scan everything in HDR. Quality is our #1 priority.
As a balance to our hard costs for the upgrade and the extra time involved running the scanning at 1/2 speed, we should be charging double the NON-HDR rate. But we understand that budgets are tight and we want to make this an accessible option. As a happy medium we are doing the service at a 30% price difference.

If you wish to have a NON-HDR scan, no problem. We still offer this service as an economical option.

On below detail note the reduction of chunky colour noise in the highlights. This is cropped in on a 16mm frame on a flat scan.